Court ruling hinders seeking death penalty for cabbie’s killer

By Cy Ryan

Friday, Dec. 10, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

The Nevada Supreme Court has issued a ruling that makes it more difficult for the Clark County District Attorney’s Office to pursue the death penalty for Frederick Paine, who pleaded guilty to the robbery and murder of a Las Vegas cab driver.

Last year, the court overturned Paine’s death sentence on grounds the two aggravating circumstances used to justify the penalty were invalid.

The District Attorney’s Office then amended its notice to seek the death penalty to include five additional aggravating circumstances.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the amended notice to seek capital punishment should be struck down. The court agreed with attorneys for Paine that the five additional aggravating circumstances were known at the original sentencing hearing and could not be used now.

Paine, who was 19 years old at the time, pleaded guilty to robbing and then fatally shooting taxi driver Kenneth Marcum in 1990. Prior to that, he robbed and shot cab driver William Walker, who survived.

A panel of District Court judges originally sentenced him to death, but the Supreme Court overturned the sentence because one of the judges fell asleep during the hearing. Paine, now 40, was sentenced to death a second time by a panel of judges in Las Vegas, but the Supreme Court last year ruled the two aggravating circumstances used in the penalty hearing were invalid.

To justify the death penalty, aggravating circumstances must outweigh the mitigating circumstances.

An accomplice, Marvin Doleman, now 41, was also sentenced to die, but his sentence was changed to life in prison.